Joe Rogan Experience Review podcast - 542 JRE Review for 1 year anniversary of Charlie Kirk's death

Episode Date: September 8, 2026

On the 1 year anniversary of Charlie Kirk's death, we revisit the episode we recorded in the immediate aftermath of his killing. Charlie was one of the most influential and controversial political voices of his generation. You didn't have to agree with everything he said to recognize what he built, the millions of people he reached, or his willingness to sit across from people who strongly disagreed with him. After watching Charlie for years, my impression was of a passionate, compassionate and well-meaning person who genuinely believed in what he was doing and, above everything else, seemed to be a good person at heart. This special begins with a new tribute to Charlie before returning to our original conversation from one year ago. Rest in peace, Charlie Kirk.

Before we get into this episode, I wanted to take a few minutes to say something about Charlie Kirk. It has now been a year since Charlie was shot and killed while speaking at Utah Valley University. He was only 31 years old. And regardless of where you sit politically, what happened that day was horrific. Charlie was a husband, a father of two young children, a friend to a lot of people. and he had become one of the most influential political voices of his generation. He built Turning Point USA from the ground up, starting when he was just 18 years old, and eventually created a movement that reached millions of people, particularly young people, who felt like their political and cultural views weren't being represented.

Now, Charlie was controversial. There's no point pretending otherwise. He said things about race, gender, abortion, religion, immigration, the election, and plenty of other subjects that created enormous backlash. Some people thought he was courageous for saying them. Others thought he was divisive, inflammatory, or just flat out wrong. And I certainly didn't agree with everything Charlie said. But I watched a lot of him over the years, long-form conversations, debates, interviews, clips where he was being challenged instead of just preaching to people who were already agreed with him.

And my impression of Charlie became different from the caricature of him that existed online. I saw somebody who seemed compassionate. I saw somebody who appeared to genuinely care about people. And more than anything, I saw someone who seemed to believe that talking to people was better than shutting them out. Charlie would sit down with people who completely disagreed with him and let them challenge him. Sometimes he won those arguments. Sometimes, I don't think he did. But he showed up.

And in a culture where we're increasingly encouraged to hate the people on the other side, there was something valuable about that. Charlie was also still incredibly young. He was evolving. His ideas were evolving. And his audience was becoming enormous. We'll never know what Charlie would have done with that influence over the next 20, 30 or 40 years. But after watching as much of him as I did, my feeling was that underneath all the politics and controversy was a genuinely well-meaning person who loved his family, cared deeply about his country, believed in what he was doing and was trying to make a difference.

You don't have to agree with somebody to recognize their humanity, and you don't have to rewrite everything they ever said after they're gone in order to show them respect. Political disagreement should never end with someone losing their life. So before we replay the episode we recorded in the immediate aftermath of Charlie's death last year, I wanted to remember the human being behind all of the headlines, arguments, clips, and controversy. A husband, a father, a man who built something extraordinary at a remarkably young age, and someone who, from everything I saw, seemed like a genuinely good person at heart. Whatever your politics are, 31 years old is far too young. Rest in peace, Charlie Kirk. And my thoughts remain with his wife, his children, his friends, and everyone who loved them.

Here's the episode we recorded one year ago. We're just going to talk about the Charlie Kirk death that happened only yesterday. What a tragedy. This is terrible for everyone involved, I believe. The fact that his family was there and witnessed this, there is no reason whatsoever to celebrate this, no matter what side you're on. I think that's absolutely disgusting. But I think it's a good thing to talk about on this podcast because, you know, Rogan has been labeled a right-wing political guy.

He has been known to debate right-wing topics. So I think he's totally in that same circle as Charlie Kirk, maybe not to the same extent. But biggest podcast in the world, I'd be surprised if there wasn't a target on his head at this point. Yeah. Super sad, dude. I mean, you know, plenty of things I didn't agree with Charlie on.

And then, you know, some the ways that he broke things down, I was like, I kind of like that, you know. But I liked that he was going to, he's a brave person. Like, for sure he's brave. He would go to campuses that were overwhelmingly left. and he would debate and he would get into it. And whether you appreciate the style or not, it's like, keep the conversation moving. That's what free speech is all about.

It's like, I don't get this idea of like, no, you've just got to shut some people up because that's mean or I don't like it. It's like, it doesn't end, though. It doesn't end. And when it gets to a point where someone shuts you up, you could be like, well, this is bullshit. I didn't mean go that far.

And I'm like, yeah, because there's no, There's no pendulum point for free speech. You've got to be careful with that, right? I think we have it down, inciting violence, you know, is bad. Don't say that. Everything else, keep the debate going. People will decide, right? It's like the communal court will decide.

That's like the free market expression of communication. And, yeah, at the end of the day, I don't think that he was a, bad representative of what an American is. Someone that believes in freedom of speech, he liked what the founding fathers put down. You know, I mean, he's a Christian man that isn't the type of Christian that is like stuff in it down your throat. Obviously, when he's debating, he's talking about it, but he was well liked. You know, people respected him a great deal. He was picking up a ton of momentum in the university space.

and, you know, I guess if you don't like his ideas, you could see that as bad. Like, oh, he's flipping these kids the other way. But I'm like, he's creating the conversation that he was not stopping liberals going to those universities and having debates too. He wasn't stopping that. He was talking with them. Yeah, there's a lot of famous debates of him talking to liberals and a lot of people believing that he got owned. He lost the debate. But that was so great about it is because it was such an open form and anyone could really talk to them.

It wasn't like shit was, you know, edited out or it was like, you know, you only see the shitty one. It was an open platform. He was the one who also started this whole thing, this whole debate culture. There's so many people, Dean Withers, for example, is pretty much one that rose up on the left. and this guy Parker who was actually at the fucking thing he's this big streamer guy who you know has this whole thing

where he debates Republicans and he was at that fucking you know debate to try to talk to him and saw him die and right in front of him and he's like and there's footage of him like on the phone being like fucking like shaking like I didn't realize

I was in such a fucking dangerous profession which is so eye-opening to all these people. Like whatever you think about Hassan, I have a lot of opinions about him as a person and as a political guy. One of the biggest Twitch streamers ever, watching his reaction to it, he literally was like,

I have to think about all my public appearances now. It's just, it's a major, major shift in this current culture here. All these people, have realized that like we're not safe to to talk in public anymore and debate in public. And that's such a tragedy, especially for what the United States stands for. Yeah. It's it is setting a really bad precedent. You know, it's I don't know.

There's just so many elements to this. This was just very shocking to me. It just really hit me in a weird way. and you know, I mean, I could think of the most like liberal speaker ever. Like, I don't want destiny getting shot. Right.

That's why I brought up Hassan. He's like, Hassan is like one of the most left wing guys. Absolutely. I would be, I would be just as pissed off. Believe me. Dude, he was supposed to debate him in two weeks. He was supposed to debate Charlie. And he's like sitting there like,

holy fuck. Like, what the fuck have I signed up for? Like, I have a target on my head. Well, you know, it doesn't seem like people are shooting the left guys. Yeah. You know, the hate is not the same. And that's very ironic. Well, with Hassan, you know, he doesn't leave his fucking house for anything.

That guy is a total like hermit at this point, you know. But there is truth in that for sure. it's just really fucking tragic. It's so tragic, man. And I think it'd be good to talk about some of the statistics here so far. So we're recording this on September 11th, funny enough. What a, like I said on the last podcast, what a shit month. Right.

Okay. We're fucking 11 days into it. My birthdays at the end of this month. Jesus. And I already don't want to celebrate it. I want to just go on vacation. I know, right? So this year, honestly, like with Ozzy and everything.

But okay, a statement by Utah Valley University was sent to the U.S. media that shots were fired from a building about 200 yards away. Footage reveals a guy running across the rooftop after this guy in all black, which matches the photo that was put out of like, here's the suspect, go find him. guy in all black with a hat matches the silhouette perfectly shooter has still not been found which is fucking insane that's not which is fucking insane man but there were so many people at their university that is probably like difficult yeah you know what I mean you could imagine if there's like a massive crowd running around

that you could like dip and dive I don't know they didn't have like a bunch of FBI and police there yeah because it's just like I think their whole thing was like, oh, someone might run up at them. And also, all these bodyguards. Unlike regular, like, unlike politicians, like the president, obviously the president has like snipers on the roof, right, for security? Can regular people have that?

Elon can't have like snipers on the roof. I don't think it works like that. So how would they even got that guy anyway? Even if someone saw him, I'm like, you're not going to hang gun on them from there. Like, I don't know. Like, yeah, it's, he was so high up and he's from like, again, 200 yards away. It's not, it's not easy. Well, he did run across after the shot was fired.

And there's even footage of him like with the sniper rifle, you know, propped up on the roof. And there's some student recording being like, hey, what the, what the hell's that guy doing bird watching with a sniper? That's weird. Right. Anyway, let's go pick up that like weed. It's like people.

It's like, dude, fucking say something. They just eating like, wrong. They're like, what's that up there? What's going on over there, guys? Yo, what are you filming? We got to get to this frat, man. Fucking get over here. It's so bullshit.

But they found a high-powered bold-action rifle at the scene. You know, we're seeing politicians from both sides. Sleepy Joe Obama being like, yo, this fucking sucks. So it's not like we're seeing, I know there's that whole thing where it's like a lot of people are claiming. There's a whole political debate around this. Elon's first thing, it was like 10 minutes after it was announced, it's like the left or the party of murder. And then at the same time, we're seeing people on the left celebrate his death. It's a fucking mess.

Those videos are really a mess. Those videos are gross. Even though we don't even know who the shooter was at this point. But it's a fucking disaster. And honestly, politically moving forward, this is not good for anybody involved. No, it's sad. There's no win whatsoever in this guy's death. So Trump addressed the nation on this.

And so what was your takeaway on that? Well, you know, I mean, that's a big deal, dude. The president, like, has a lot going on. And he was like, nope, this is in Poland. We're doing this right now. And it was a five-minute speech. You know, Trump pulls those off. You know, dude, you don't even need to give Trump the speech.

Just get the teleprompter going. He's ready to go. He doesn't give off. He doesn't practice nothing. And he pulls it off. And yeah, he's not happy. He knew Charlie. He liked him.

You know, he's not happy about this. I mean, obviously, dude, he was shot last year. Whether you think that that was fake or whatever people want to say, it's like there's a good chance he was just actually shot at. People died that day. he's probably not that cool with snipers and i think he's i think he's pretty fucking pissed honestly yeah it's like it's such a a hot topic issue and it's such a sensitive subject so i i do want to say uh trump in the speech does you know talk about the left and said he's

going to talk about like you know go after the voices that speak negatively like you know that speak negative about right wing figures so i don't know how you interpret that but i think we'll see how that plays out um but i also do want to add upon this because there is a lot of like it's it's an issue on both sides for sure right i don't think this is the left are it's all every school shooter every killing has been a left wing thing even though yes, that has occurred, of course, but let's not forget two Democratic Minnesota lawmakers were killed a couple months ago in their homes with guns. Oh, yeah.

You know, you know, that that guy had a police car dressed as a cop. Right. Dude. Yeah. What? It's, it's terrifying. It's insane times, man. But, like, it's an issue on both sides. I'm not sure really what he's thinking about this, but we'll see how the president, the government, and society moves forward with this death. It's fucking tragic. I really, I really hope we're able to like band together and like figure some shit out and how to avoid this thing. A fucking school shooting happens yesterday too. Oh yeah. Terrible day, dude. Terrible day. My cousin lives, was going to school in high school 20 minutes from the school shooting.

Which is just fucking insane, man. It's like to know, and now he's evacue. He's, you know, he has the day off. But it's like, you know, it's, it was the, the closest school to his. Yeah. It was shot up. It's fucking crazy, man. It's like, I'm not saying anything here.

Like, what, what needs to happen? But, but all I'm going to say is whatever this, whatever's happening is not working. Whatever system this is is not working. Yeah. Can we have some peace? Can we have non-violence? Can we have good communication? And when I say good, I mean free speech.

Freedom to speak without trying to kill each other and not attack each other. I mean, let the ideas flow. But it just seems like a heavily violence time. And it's just there's no good in that, dude. I don't want to sound like the hugest hippie in the world. but it's like no stop everyone chill the fuck out everyone needs to get a free joint in the mail or something it's like it's brutal man but of course like we can get in this whole like you know debate and conversation about gun laws mental health laws but that's a whole thing i think we'll just see

play out over time yeah uh i think what would be interesting to get into are a lot of the conspiracy theories that have been going around that have gained a lot of traction these aren't just little fucking theories people are saying on on dread it these are like serious fucking mainstream things that i'm seeing like millions of views and likes on that's because how weird is it that this guy doesn't get caught it's a fuck this guy was no fucking you know discord mod on the roof trying to kill trump this was like a fucking real professional and it's making a lot of people think who the fuck is this guy yeah Well, it's interesting you say that.

So I have, I just happen because of, well, podcasting and some other people that I just randomly have known over the years. I know two Green Berets that are retired. One of them has extensive training in sniper things. So, sniper things. Like, clearly I know what I'm talking about. The sniper hobby. Sniper stuff. And I asked them and I was like, does that look like a.

professional shot, you know, and then there was some back and forth on it being the neck, and that's not usually a spot that you're hit, headshots, if that's what's available, often sent a mass. So I spoke to two Green Berets, one that had extensive training with sniper, but they both do, and then a SWAT team guy from Glendale, and all different responses. at the end of the day they were like it's not a very far shot many people with a little bit of training with a rifle could do that and you know i don't know if that's true i don't have much experience with it but i believe these guys and let me read the one thing so it said at 200 yards

wherever you put the cross has is where it's going to hit I've seen a couple of posts of guys liking the shot placement and some saying that it deflected off his breastplate, hard to say. Now, professional is open for interpretation. Anyone that is older than seven can hit a target with a rifle on a scope of 200 yards. I think a sophisticated shooter would have not been seen at all on the roof

or getting away. They would have devised a hide side to look like an air. air conditioner or part of it and being there before the crowd started to arrive. I think every operation is open to mistakes, but if it was an expensive hired gun, no one would have seen a thing. Also, a professional is anyone who gets paid to do a job. You can just pay some riled up idiot to make them a pro. So, Yeah.

Yeah. That's kind of that breakdown. And you know, you have to defer it a bit because this guy is like way more skilled at this thing than I would be. So I would assume his assessment is like, well, it's better than mine. And I'm like, all right, shit. And that's what we got. That, you know, that makes a lot of sense of everything he's saying. And I think it's probably that.

That just some fucking riled up crazy ass guy who fucking, you know, Got a gun and shot them. But a lot of people don't believe that. A lot of people, you know, I think the dumbest one, which was the first one I saw was people saying it's AI. Blood doesn't come out like that. It's AI. I'm like, buddy, you know, I was on a live leak in 2008. All right.

I know what that shit looks like. Yeah, you have like massive veins up this side, I think. Your jugular. Yeah, it's, yeah, that was accurate. It's like supplying your brains. I saw. I had a friend sent me it. I was in a coffee shop and I watched it.

And I was like, this might be the worst environment, the most unfitting environment to see death. But it was stunned to me. I was stunned because I thought it would like, oh, we got shot. Because you think people get shot. You hear about people getting shot and surviving all the time.

When it comes to these assassinations, Trump being an example. I was expecting at worst, we got a shoulder hit or something. But that was like, Dead. The close up, it was like, holy fuck. I don't know a lot about what it takes to kill someone really, but when I saw that, I was like, I will be amazed if he makes it out of this.

Also, let's say if he had, if he had made it out of that, dude, president. Yeah. President. Yeah. That might have been. If he came back and like could speak again and then they just. have better security. I mean, I'd go watch him. I'm just like, how brave is that? Like, I, you know, that bravery button, this is kind of like what got Trump elected. I don't think it's

unreasonable to be like, yeah, brave, good. I mean, if he never came out of his house again, I'd be like, well, I also get that because that would be scary. But he would. Yeah. And it's just like, even going forward how awkward it would be like debating gun laws with like a giant bulletproof glass thing. You know, just like, yeah. He's like wearing a crash helmet and just pads. Yeah, you're in like riot gear and shit. They just bring out a TV.

It's just on a laptop with a with a camera and he's on a Zoom call in a bunker. You're in line to talk to him on Zoom. All right. So let's, let's keep going here. All right. Let's, so. I do have to wrap it up pretty soon. Okay.

How much time do we got? We got like five minutes. Five minutes. We can do this in five minutes. All right. Sorry to do that. I'll just run through this real quick. I got to go.

No worries. So Israel killed him. Oh, yeah. That's a big. To be fair, people are getting, there are a lot of people getting pretty upset with Israel right now. So they're going to blame Israel for a bunch of stuff. Right?

Exactly. And a lot of people are. pointing at, you know, Charlie Kirk, the, like, the past week was starting to turn on Israel. He was always the kind of was. This week, this week, he was saying, yeah, I'm fucking changing my mom. I'm not really sure how I feel about this shit anymore. Yeah. And then boom.

And then the guy's gone. And then they don't find them. It's like that's the timing's not good. Timing's not good for this. Especially with, with the climate. And then, okay, here's the last one. okay and this is the one that's going around the most it's the hand gestures oh yeah from those guys body guards behind them one guy tips his hat and flicks his ear the other guy like does this yeah

taps the arm it doesn't it doesn't even look like a scratch you like taps the arm boom he's dead and it's like it's not it doesn't look human it doesn't look natural it looks like code yeah you know i'm not gonna i'm not gonna lie it does look unusual it is kind of unusual movements you know it's like the hat one especially it's like it's like when those uh what is it in baseball the guys in the back they like do the

that's what people were saying yeah it was like embased like the little hand movements to like signal shit it looked exactly like that but it's also it's like hold the fucking phone why even put that guy back there it's like why does he need to give them it's like the sniper can just shoot a person he doesn't need to wait like he has to be watching charlie and also watching some nerd with a hat

tapping his shoulder it's like who the fuck are they looking at right because it's like he sees him why would he need cup up maybe there was uh there was more to it people are saying it's like a sacrifice it's it's fucking the dude the internet is is being the internet dude imagine how scary would be if it was this it's like he has these security teams that maybe they've worked with him for a while, but they're already, like, they're all kind of sold to like this whole other cabash that's going on, and they just stood around. So even though most of the time they protect you, as soon as they get a phone call from the right person, they're like, oh, he's got to go.

Tap, head, shoulder, out. And you're like, the, Peter Thiel. Yeah. Peter. Thiel. Teal. feel. I don't know, dude. Yeah, it's, it's fucking, it's a lot. It's a massive conspiracy. I really hope by the time we, we, this is out, they fucking found who shot him. I really hope the best for his family, his wife and kids. I hope people are taking care of him right now.

Yeah. And lastly, I want to say. I can't fucking imagine how they feel. This is so terrible. You text me earlier. It was like Charlie Sheen was on with Rogan. and it like hit the last little bit after they talked about his drug abuse for two and a half hours and then Rogan's whole energy changed dude for the whole rest of that pod it was not the same

because he knows he's in that circle it shook him the fuck up it's really interesting his house is going to have more security like you know than the Pentagon oh he has a lot anyway but it's a two hours, 29 minutes, and I think 50 seconds, because it took me forever to like scour through and find it. And that's when it all changed. They took a piss break. They came back. One of Rogan security told them it just happened.

And yeah, I've never seen Rogan shaken up like that mid-part. Me either. I mean, it was, it was something. And it's going to be interesting to see how this changes, how it changes debate. you know, is Jordan Peterson going to change the way he lectures and speaks? I mean, you've got to think that people are going to be real concerned about their own safety because live debate culture might

have died with Charlie. Well, we don't know. We're going to find out who's brave and who's not. We'll see. We'll see. But maybe people just get better fucking security. I don't know what it takes to do that. I don't get like, you know,

what do you have to have people on the roof? Like someone could, you might have to be afraid someone comes up with the six shooter. Have at least two snipers up on a roof looking around the whole time. I don't think that's a bad move. How much do they cost? We should honestly look at the patterns here because it seems like the roof is the fucking spot. Well, for snipers, yeah, they love that.

Unless they're like in a bush somewhere. Right. You know, high up bush. I think in a tree is like a lot of work for a sniper, so that's not, that's a bad spot. Yeah. That's, you know, I think it would be easy to catch the guy running in the gilly suit, you know. Yeah. There he is.

He like looks really weird when he's in subway, getting a sandwich. You're like, bro, now we see you. This only works when you're in the woods. I think I might have a sneaking suspicion of the shooter. I got a sneaky feeling. Yep. Well, look, that's call it for today. very sad

Charlie God bless you you were my opinion a real American and I don't say that meaning you know

I supported and loved everything that you said but you know you definitely cared about this country and you represented you know a person of bravery that you know

I would like to be as bold as you one day you know you're a good man and make some balls to do that it fucking sucks to do what he did it fucking sucks dude it it fucking sucks so much it's such a tragedy i'm really hoping people are taking care of his family right now and people are there for them let's make sure shit like this never happens again and let's fucking like let's get this guy i'll be glued to

the news and uh yeah i guess that covers it yep that's it thank you guys so much and uh Talk to you patrons later. Thanks for joining us.